


To Err is Human

by RocknVaughn



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Fluff, Spoilers through 3x06, a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 02:16:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocknVaughn/pseuds/RocknVaughn
Summary: After Stanley's shocking revelation to Mattie, she thinks about what got her into that predicament.





	To Err is Human

~

As Stanley shut the bathroom door behind himself, Mattie collapsed onto the closed toilet lid, her watery knees no longer able to support her weight.

_Pregnant._

The word rolled around in Mattie’s brain until it ceased to have meaning; a random pattern of consonants and vowels that made an unintelligible sound. She couldn’t be pregnant; she just _couldn’t_.

Yet, Stanley was a synth. He had beyond-human capabilities to detect such things and no reason to lie.

Mattie looked up at the ceiling, mentally picturing Leo as she’d left him moments ago: his bright blue eyes slitted against the morning sun and his hair endearingly sleep-mussed, his gravelly, mumbled greeting of, “Hey…”, and the soft kiss to her temple as she’d snuck out from under his arm to answer the call of nature and start her day.

They’d fallen together so suddenly and completely that Mattie could hardly comprehend that it was only two weeks ago that she’d visited the Railyard while he’d been in a coma. In all the months she’d spent at Leo’s bedside in varying states of hope and despair, she had never imagined how perfect a fit they’d be for each other.

~

“Stop.”

Mattie turned around, stunned by Leo’s command. “What?”

He pushed himself away from the window he’d been leaning against and walked toward her. “Stop wallowing. A lot of good came out of it, too, you know?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s hard to see that sometimes.”

“Well, you have to try. You can’t keep beating yourself up.”

“Cant I?” she drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No.”

In the year since Day Zero, Leo was the only person to ever cut through the layers of her guilt and self-pity. He’d been down that road before and had lived through the tragedy it brought in its wake, and he wasn’t going to let her do the same. He’d only been awake for three days, but yet he still understood what was in her mind better than anyone else in her life.

Yet, for all his astuteness and insight when it came to her feelings about releasing the consciousness code, he was surprisingly obtuse when it came to her feelings for him.

“You were there day after day because...you felt so guilty.”

“I wasn’t there out of guilt!” she protested. “I was there because I thought you were going to die. I was terrified that you’d never wake up and I’d--”

Mortified at what she’d almost revealed, Mattie stopped herself before she could finish her thought out loud: _\--never get a chance to tell you how much you mean to me._

Humiliated, she’d turned on her heel and left Leo to follow her home. She couldn’t let him see the blush staining her cheeks or the tears in her eyes. It was just a silly crush. He’d never see her like that. Never.

But she’d been wrong.

Back in her room, Leo’s purloined kiss had stopped Mattie in her tracks, both literally and metaphorically. She’d thought, _He couldn’t really mean…?_ But one look at Leo’s face--his eyes locked on her lips, his expression open and longing--proved that he did. After all this time, he wanted her; wanted _them_. She leaned up and stole her kiss back from him, her hand sliding down Leo’s chest as he cradled her cheek in his palm. Their kiss was electric and in that moment, there was nothing Mattie had wanted more than to touch and be touched, to see and be seen.

When he’d stripped off his shirt, baring his scars to Mattie with a boldness and confidence that shocked her, she’d known there was no going back. This was Leo, _her_ Leo, and she wanted to be _his_ Mattie, consequences be damned.

Despite the urgency, the heated puffs of his breath creating gooseflesh as he bared more and more of her to his eyes and touch, it was abundantly clear to Mattie that it wasn’t just sex to Leo. It was in the way he’d met her eyes in unspoken question again and again, seeking her consent to continue; in the way his fingertips would pause in their sensual assault to instead slide down the slope of her nose, or trace the shell of her ear, or ghost across her stomach to make her laugh. And when they were finally bared to each other, warm skin against warm skin as he leaned over her, it was in the reverence in which he’d breathed, “God, Mattie...you are _so_ beautiful…”

~

Afterwards, it hadn’t taken long for realisation to set in, for the enormity of what they’d done to come crashing down upon Mattie. They were cocooned in a tangle of sheets and limbs, comfortable in their sated bliss, when the shiver of foreboding crept into her mind. She’d let out an anxious breath that fanned across Leo’s skin and made him stir.

“What is it?” he’d whispered, peering down at Mattie in the near-darkness, fingering tendrils of hair out of her eyes as she looked up at him.

She absently drew circular patterns on Leo’s chest as she sighed again and admitted with chagrin, “This was stupid. _Really_ stupid.”

Leo’s hand on her back slid from neck to waist and back again. “What was stupid?”

“This. Us,” she explained vaguely, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip.

She immediately regretted her words as his hands stilled and doubt flooded Leo’s face. “Was it?” he asked her in a small and vulnerable tone.

“Yes--” she began to say, but then belatedly realised what Leo thought she’d meant and quickly amended, “Oh! No, no, no. I didn’t mean--! I just meant, you know...without protection.”

Despite the seriousness of the topic, Leo’s relief at his misunderstanding was palpable and obvious. “Oh, shit,” he still replied contritely, pulling her back against him to snuggle her close. “Damn it! I didn’t even think…”

“Well, I didn’t either,” Mattie admitted.  

“But we should have.”

“Yes, we should have.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Mattie knew he meant it.

The corner of Mattie’s mouth quirked up and she shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll just have to be more careful from now on, that’s all.”

Leo raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mattie looked up and met his eyes, noticed the mischievous twinkle in them, and shoved at him playfully. “Oh shut it, you smug arse!”

“Whatever do you mean, Mattie?”  Leo said innocently, while his fingers teased a breathless line up her side.

His knowing smile quickly morphed into a startled O when Mattie traced a meandering path along the inside of Leo’s thigh. “Two can play at that game,” she responded archly.

Leo grabbed Mattie’s wrist to keep her hand from reaching its intended destination. “Uh, unless our status on that protection situation has changed in the last five minutes, perhaps you ought not do that.”

Knowing she’d won this round, Mattie muffled her laugh against Leo’s shoulder and settled down to sleep in his arms.

~

Mattie woke just after dawn to discover Leo spooned up behind her, one arm tucked under her pillow and the other draped across her front, his large hand possessively cradling her breast. She sighed happily and scooted back a couple centimetres to press herself all along Leo’s front. But the movement of her legs made Mattie hyper-aware that she was sticky and sore and in dire need of freshening up.

As Mattie tried to slide toward the edge of the mattress, Leo’s arm tightened around her, and he grunted in sleepy protest.

“Shh,” she soothed, turning her head to kiss Leo’s stubbly cheek as she pried his protective hand from her skin, “I just have to use the loo. I’ll be back soon.”

Leo groaned incoherently, but his fingers went compliantly slack and Mattie was able to crawl out of bed. She started to shrug on her robe, but discarded it again in favour of Leo’s shirt. She’d have a hell of a lot to explain if her Mum caught her wearing it, but the smell of him that clung to the fabric and wafted around her as she tiptoed down the stairs made it worth the risk.

~

Mattie had only been gone a few minutes, so she was more than a little surprised to find that, not only was Leo awake, but he’d turned on the bedside table light. He sat, still as a statue, staring down at her side of the bed. His face was frozen in a rictus of horror and shame.

“Leo, what is it?” she asked in concern, gingerly perching on the edge of the bed and trying not to wince.

He didn’t even look up; he just kept staring at the jumble of sheets where Mattie had lain. “I hurt you,” he said with a grimace of self-loathing.

“What?” Mattie’s forehead crinkled with confusion. “No, you didn’t.”

Leo pushed aside the bedclothes to reveal the telltale reddish-brown stain. “Yes, I did,” he insisted.

“Oh!” Mattie exclaimed, comprehending at last. The only sisters Leo had were synths, so he’d have no reason to be aware of this specific quirk of the female human anatomy. She scooted toward him on the bed and lay her hand on his. “No Leo, it’s okay. I’m fine,” she soothed.

He shook his head in denial. “I know blood when I see it, Mattie.”

“Leo,” she explained patiently, “that always happens the first time.”

Mattie’s answer startled Leo into looking up at her, wide-eyed with alarm. “Really?”

“Just the one time,” she reassured him with a nod.

Leo’s shoulders sagged with relief and when he scooted back down under the covers, he pulled Mattie down with him. “So, you’re really all right?” he asked, tenderly stroking her cheek with his thumb.

“Yeah, nothing to worry about. I should be fine by tomorrow.”

“Good,” Leo said softly. His eyes travelled down the length of her body. “Wait...is that my shirt?”

~

Mattie smiled, thinking of the mock wrestling match that had ensued over ownership of said shirt--a battle that resulted in the article of clothing in question being removed and abandoned in favour of other, more pleasurable activities.

~

The next morning began later than was Mattie’s norm, but then she had a very excellent reason for that in the form of a very warm and cuddly bedmate. For someone who had always been incredibly standoffish physically in the past, the complete 180 Leo made once he let someone past his barriers was a revelation to her...and she wasn’t about to squander the opportunity.

She awoke to her mother’s voice carrying up the stairs. “Mats?”

“Yeah?” she called back, running her hand up and down the arm Leo had around her in a silent apology for waking him that way.

“Toby has got Soph off to school already and I’m about to go,” her mum responded. “I’ve left you the key to the van in case you need to go out.”

“Thanks. See you later. Have a good day!”

“You too,” Laura replied, her footfalls getting quieter as she went downstairs.

After they heard the front door open and shut, Leo pecked a kiss just beneath Mattie’s ear and he murmured, “I like the way you are with her, Mattie. You two really respect each other. It’s nice.”

Mattie turned to face Leo and pecked a kiss against his lips. “Yeah, we do now. We didn’t always, though. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand about her. There were a lot of things she didn’t understand about _me_.”  

“But you worked it out. You’re so brave, Mattie,” Leo praised her. “You both are.”

Mattie’s fingers combed through Leo’s unruly curls, and she used her thumb to caress his cheek. “You’re not so bad, yourself, you know. Left alone to fend for yourself and your family the way you did…” The thought was a painful one: his loneliness, his loss, his feelings of rejection. Bearing such a huge responsibility at such a young age…

Some of her emotions must have shown on her face, because Leo leaned in and kissed the sadness away. “I’m okay,” he reminded her.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish you hadn’t had to go through it alone.”

“I wasn’t alone. I had them; my family.”

“Still…”

“And now I have you,” he said, resting his forehead against hers and rubbing her nose with his own.

If Mattie wasn’t already hopelessly head over arse for Leo Elster, that overload of cute-and-sweetness would have done it. “Yeah, you do. You definitely do.”

Leo dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Good.”

The tender moment was broken by the sound of Leo’s empty stomach growling. Mattie giggled, more at the embarrassed blush creeping up Leo’s cheeks than at the sound itself. “Someone’s hungry,” she teased.

Leo looked down from Mattie’s face to the top of her breasts--the curves of which were just visible above the taut line of the sheet across her chest--and then back up again. His eyes darkened as his hands slid up her sides to cup their fullness. “Yes, very…”

Mattie allowed herself one knee-weakening moment of basking in his caress, but then sat up and shoved aside the covers. “For _food_ , Leo…” she scolded, poking one finger into his belly to remind him.

“That, too…” His voice sounded about an octave lower than normal as his lips brushed against the small of her back.

“Leo…” she groaned, “stop being so bloody tempting! In case you’ve forgotten, we are in desperate need of certain supplies.”

At that reminder, Leo moaned and rolled away from her onto his back. “Damn! Plus, you’re recovering, right?”

Mattie nodded as she picked up Leo’s shirt from last night and stood to pull it over her head. “That, too.”

“And that’s still my shirt,” Leo protested good-naturedly as he sat up in bed. Mattie tried not to stare as the sheet slid off his bare chest and pooled at his waist, exposing his scar.

“I am aware,” she replied, walking a few feet before bending over to pick up Leo’s discarded jeans and chucking them at him. “Come on. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

~

Mattie had to admit: being with Leo was pretty wonderful. Or at least it had been, until now. 

 _It only takes once,_ Laura had told her all those years ago, and obviously, she was right. 

They had only just begun their lives; and in Leo's case, almost literally. How on earth would they ever cope with being parents, too?

Mattie glanced up at the ceiling once more, thinking of the man she loved: sleep-soft and warm, and unaware of the fate about to befall them. Her vision went cloudy from the sting of unshed tears. _What the hell were they going to do?_

She wrapped her arms around the tiny life growing inside of her--the one they had created together--and let the tears she'd been holding back fall.


End file.
